Lucy climbed onto her grandfather’s
knee and stared at his smiling face. His
skin was like a scrunched-up piece of
paper, all crumpled and creased.
“Why doesn’t your skin fit you any
more, Granddad?” Lucy asked. “It’s all
crinkly!”

Granddad threw back his head and laughed.
“Those crinkles are called wrinkles,” he said.
“I have lived a very long time and I have wrinkles
from smiling so often.”
He looked at Lucy’s puzzled face and rubbed
her cheek. “Whenever I smiled an especially big
smile, I got a wrinkle to show for it.”

“What’s this wrinkle from?”
she asked, pointing to a deep
crease at the corner of Granddad’s
right eye.
“Now let me think,” he said,
scratching his chin. “That’s a very
old one. Oh yes, I remember. I got
that wrinkle from smiling so much
the day I married your Grandma.”

Lucy pointed to another deep crease at the corner
of Granddad’s left eye. “What about this one?”
Granddad smiled. “That’s from
the day your Mommy was born.
My smile was so wide, the wrinkle
squeezed a great big tear of happiness
from my eye.”

“And this one here?” Lucy asked,
tracing a long wrinkle near her
grandfather’s nose.
Little grooves appeared between
Granddad’s thick eyebrows as he thought.
“Now let me see,” he said, tapping
his head. “Ah, yes. That was the day your
Mommy reached into her toy box to
get her favorite teddy bear, and fell in!”
Granddad laughed.
Lucy giggled. “Mommy must have
looked so funny!”

Lucy looked up at Granddad’s face again. “Where did this wrinkle come from?”
she asked as she ran her chubby finger along a thin line all the way across Granddad’s
forehead.
“When your Mommy was little,” Granddad told Lucy, “Grandma and I took her to a
farm. While she was feeding a baby goat, another goat nibbled a piece right out of her
shorts. Grandma and I thought it was very funny, but your Mommy didn’t.”
Lucy smiled as she imagined Mommy’s undies showing through the hole in her shorts.

“What are these two from?”
Lucy asked as her fingers traced the
long furrows in her grandfather’s
cheeks.
“Oh, those are much more recent
wrinkles,” he replied. “I remember
them well. They appeared because
I was so happy the day your Mommy
married your Daddy.”

Lucy searched Granddad’s
face very carefully. “What
about these two really, really
big ones?” she asked as she
put her fingers on the large
creases curving up from the
corners of Granddad’s mouth.
“Ah, those are the most
important of all,” he told her.
“That’s why they are the
biggest even though they
are very new. I got those two
extra special wrinkles the
day YOU were born.”

“Oh,” said Lucy, smiling a huge smile.
And at the corners of her mouth appeared
two little wrinkles, just like Granddad’s.

For Hayley –KE
To my loving wife Frances, for without her encouragement and compassion,
I’d still be on the drawing board! –RM
Special thanks to Gregg Hangebrauck for recommending this job to me. What a wonderful experience this has been. –RM

Illustration Notes
The following modeled for and appear in this book: Richard McFarland (the illustrator) as Granddad, Bekah Caskey as
Lucy, Fran McFarland as Grandma, Thomas and Christine Sherman as Lucy’s parents, Rachel Sherman as Lucy’s mom as a
child, and Annie the cocker spaniel as herself. Also appearing are: Christine, Don and Erma Franks, Gregg Hangebrauck,
Frank and Viola Jasonowicz, Chris and Marge Karidis, George King, MaryRose and Mike Krupa, Joe and Mike Lippeth,
Christopher McFarland, John D., John Jr. and Lisa Miller, Jeff and Linda Neis, Connie and Ruth Oney, E. George, Eugene,
Jake, Mary and Viola Scheuring, Johannah Schultz, Tiffany Scott, Mitch and Pam Szalajka, Emily and Esther Turner, Dina
and Dr. Wayne Wagner. The painting that hangs on the wall on page 29 is a scene from the movie Somewhere in Time,
starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, for which Richard McFarland painted portraits.